As the Doctor tries in vain to return Ian and Barbara to their own time,
the companions find themselves on the planet Skaro. Skaro is home to two
races, both mutated in a long-ago war. The Thals are now beautiful and
peace-loving, while the Daleks are evil monsters housed inside robotic
travelling machines. The Thals have come to the Dalek city to make amends
with their long-ago enemies, but the Daleks secretly plot to exterminate
the entire Thal race.

Production

When CE Webber's miniaturisation story, “The Giants”, was
still planned to be the first Doctor Who serial, it was to be
followed by a caveman adventure by Anthony Coburn. After “The
Giants” fell through and Coburn's story was pushed up to the debut
position (eventually becoming 100,000 BC) in
mid-June 1963, Coburn was immediately ask to provide a replacement as
well. This was formally commissioned on July 3rd, by which time Coburn had
left the BBC and gone freelance, following the dissolution of the
Corporation's Script Department in June. In the interim, it was agreed
that Coburn's second story -- given the working title of “The
Robots” -- should be expanded from four episodes to six.

Meanwhile, amongst the writers courted by script editor David Whitaker for
Doctor Who had been a comedy writer named Terry Nation. Nation had
come to Whitaker's attention by virtue of his work on three episodes of
ABC's science-fiction anthology series Out Of This World, but he
had primarily served as a comedy writer, most recently for comic Tony
Hancock. On Hancock's advice, Nation initially passed on Doctor
Who. After parting ways with his employer, however, Nation hastily
composed a submission for the series entitled “The Survivors”.
This was formally commissioned as a six-part story, now called “The
Mutants”, on July 31st. It was intended to be the season's fourth
adventure, following John Lucarotti's Marco
Polo.

Originally, the Daleks and the Thals were confronted by
aliens whose ancestors had actually fired the neutron missile

In developing his concept from its initial storyline, Nation made numerous
changes, most notably to the final outcome. Originally, the Daleks and the
Thals were both confronted by a race of beings from another planet, who
revealed that it was their ancestors who had actually fired the neutron
missile which had devastated Skaro centuries earlier. Their people had
since realised the error of their ways and sought to help both the Daleks
and the Thals rebuild their shattered civilisation.

Additionally, much was made of a forthcoming “great rain” -- a
periodic meteorological event on Skaro -- which would reduce the radiation
levels enough to permit the Daleks to emerge from their city and confront
the Thals. The dangers facing Ian, Barbara and the Thals in the mountains
were different (they originally included mutated spiders and a fiery gas
fissure), and the Doctor and Susan were sentenced to be executed in a
“Sonic chamber”. The creature housed inside the Dalek casing
was conceived as being frog-like in appearance. Regular electricity
powered the Daleks; it was associate producer Mervyn Pinfield who
suggested they could instead run on static electricity. Also, the Daleks
started out as much less villainous creations, motivated to kill the Thals
primarily to prevent the outbreak of another war.

A seventh episode was granted to “The Mutants” on August 8th
to give Nation more space to develop his ideas. Around this time, the
title was briefly changed to “Beyond The Sun” before reverting
back to “The Mutants”. [This website will follow the popular
convention of referring to the story as The Daleks to avoid
confusion with Serial NNN, also called The
Mutants.]

By September 16th, The Daleks was shifted back to fifth in the
running order, to make way for Robert Gould's untitled take on Webber's
miniaturisation idea (which would ultimately go unused). A week later,
however, on the 23rd, the decision was made to flipflop The Daleks
and “The Robots”. Whitaker and producer Verity Lambert were
becoming increasingly unhappy with Coburn's work on Doctor Who, and
additional rewrites on 100,000 BC meant that
“The Robots” would not be completed in time for the
scheduled recording dates. Nation's adventure, being the only one ready
to go before the cameras on such short notice, therefore became Serial
B; “The Robots” would eventually be abandoned altogether.
Donald Wilson, the Head of Drama Serials, was less than pleased with
Lambert's decision, but reluctantly agreed that the producer had no
other choice but to proceed with Nation's story.

When it was realised that The
Robots could not be completed, only The
Daleks was ready for production

The director originally assigned to the Serial B slot was Rex Tucker, a
BBC veteran who had effectively acted as Doctor Who's unofficial
producer prior to Lambert's arrival. Although it had been planned that
Tucker would direct every second story of the season (alternating with
Waris Hussein), it was now agreed that Tucker should move on from
Doctor Who. His replacement on The Daleks was Christopher
Barry. Barry had begun his career at Ealing Films before moving into
television once it was clear that the British movie industry would be
undergoing a period of contraction. For the BBC, Barry had helmed episodes
of series including Compact and No Cloak -- No Dagger (which
he also produced).

However, Barry would not be available for the entirety of the production,
due to commitments on Smuggler's Bay. Consequently, it was agreed
that Barry would share the directorial duties on The Daleks with
Richard Martin, whose directing experience was limited. Martin had gotten
his start as a stage actor, and had so far only handled an episode of the
thriller anthology Suspense. Due to his avowed interest in
science-fiction, however, Martin had already been involved with the
development of Doctor Who for several months. Martin would helm
parts three, six and seven, with Barry handling the remaining four
installments.

Another change to the production personnel for Serial B came when original
designer Ridley Scott -- later to gain fame for his work on Alien,
Blade Runner, Gladiator and other films -- proved
unavailable for filming at the Ealing Television Film Studios. He was
replaced by Raymond Cusick, to whom fell the task of designing Doctor
Who's first alien monsters as a result.

Filming for The Daleks took place at Ealing over five days
beginning on October 28th, focussing on the model shots and the chasm
scene. Cusick was very disappointed with the Dalek city miniature
constructed by Shawcraft, a specialist company contracted when the BBC
Visual Effects Department indicated that they would not be able to handle
the enormity of the Doctor Who workload. Cusick thought the
Shawcraft model was too small and lacked detail, but was left with little
option but to make use of it. Shortly thereafter, on November 13th, all
the Thal names were revised. The more Germanic sounding Stohl, Vahn, Kurt,
Jahl, Ven and Zhor became Temmosus, Alydon, Ganatus, Kristas, Antodus and
Elyon, respectively. Dyoni took the place of a male character named
Daren.

After the first episode was recorded on November 15th, a
technical fault was discovered, forcing its remount on December 6th

Episode one, The Dead Planet, was recorded on November 15th at Lime
Grove Studio D, and it was planned that the remaining installments would
be taped on consecutive Fridays through to January 3rd, with the exception
of a holiday break on December 27th. Early the next week, however, a
serious problem was discovered: the communications from Barry to
production assistant Norman Stewart, via the latter's headphones, had
accidentally been picked up by the studio microphones, rendering the
entire day's work unusable. Donald Wilson agreed that The Dead
Planet should be rerecorded on December 6th, pushing the final four
installments back by a week and reducing the lead time between recording
and broadcast to less than a month. A happier consequence, however, was
that the filming of the Dalek city model could now be remounted.

The Daleks themselves were unveiled the following week. Cusick had
approached the design with the goal of creating a monster which would not
simply look like a man in a costume; he found particular inspiration in
Nation's description of the Daleks as gliding about like the long-skirted
Georgian State Dancers. Cusick's first attempt was a conical, one-armed
creature; this was followed by a shorter, two-armed design featuring a
diamond-patterned skirt section and a large camera lens on the dome.

To this point, the Dalek hands were clamp-shaped, as suggested by
Nation's script. It was only in Cusick's next version that the Dalek bore
one sucker-arm and one gun-arm, and the design basically looked as it
would on screen. Still, at this stage the two arms were positioned at
different heights (the gun-arm above the sucker-arm), and the skirt
section was smoothly curving rather than slatted. Cusick also thought that
the operator might be able to move about on a tricycle, until it was found
that no tricycle was small enough to fit inside the Dalek casing. Cusick
also hoped that the arms might be able to rotate around the body, and that
the bumps on the skirt section would light up to show the Dalek's
emotional state, but these ideas proved uneconomic.

Four Dalek casings were created by Shawcraft and debuted during the studio
recording of The Survivors on November 22nd. Knowing that The
Dead Planet would be rerecorded, Carole Ann Ford took the opportunity
to change her costume for the serial. However, work on this day was muted
by the news that United States President John F Kennedy had been shot in
Dallas, Texas. With the Dalek props available, additional filming was
undertaken at Ealing on November 26th, of the scene in which the Daleks
burn their way into the Lift Room. A week later, on December 2nd, the
remounted Dalek city model shots were filmed at Ealing, with the miniature
now a much larger and more complex affair.

Four Dalek casings were created by Shawcraft and debuted
in the studio on November 22nd

The second attempt at recording episode one followed on December 6th;
besides Ford's new outfit, there were only minor differences between the
two versions. The following week, The Ambush went into the studio.
Due to the complicated nature of the installment, Barry opted to record
the scenes out of script order, and captured the footage directly on film
-- rather than videotape -- to make editing easier. Production on The
Daleks wrapped up four weeks later when The Rescue was taped
on January 10th, 1964.

Meanwhile, The Survivors was broadcast on December 28th, giving the
audience at home their first full view of a Dalek. One of those audience
members was BBC Head of Drama Sydney Newman, the driving force behind the
gestation of Doctor Who. Newman was outraged by the Daleks, feeling
that they betrayed his desire to avoid so-called “bug-eyed
monsters” as nemeses for the Doctor. Like Donald Wilson before him,
however, Newman was mollified by Lambert's explanation of the
circumstances which led to The Daleks being pushed up the
production schedule. Also voicing his displeasure with the story around
this time was BBC Controller Donald Baverstock, who indicated that serials
set in the future or on alien worlds should focus on exploring the
cultural differences between the time travellers and those they meet.

However, the outpouring of internal BBC criticism was stemmed somewhat
when the viewing figures for episode three became known: the audience for
Doctor Who had grown by nearly two-fifths in the span of just one
week. Interest in the Daleks continued to burgeon as the serial
progressed, and by the time part six was transmitted on January 25th,
Doctor Who's viewership had jumped 63% compared to the final
episode of 100,000 BC. The show was now one of
the top 30 programmes for the week and the Daleks had incited a new craze
amongst schoolchildren all over Britain. An incredulous Nation was now
finding himself inundated with mail from young fans.
By this point in time, both Wilson and Newman had admitted their error in
their earlier criticism of The Daleks. Both men promised that, in
the future, they would show greater faith in Lambert's decisionmaking and
vision for Doctor Who. In early January, meanwhile, Lambert had
instructed that two of the four Dalek casings should be kept in storage,
in case they were required for a future serial (the other two were donated
to a boys' hostel, the Doctor Barnardo's Home at Stepney Causeway). Indeed,
Lambert's foresight was quickly shown to be justified: by the end of
February, a second Dalek story was already being contemplated. Dalekmania
was born.

By the end of February, a second Dalek story was already
being contemplated; Dalekmania was born

But the success of the Daleks -- and hence of Doctor Who -- was not
to be confined to the small screen. In February, Frederick Muller Ltd
expressed interest in novelising Doctor Who serials, beginning with
The Daleks. When Terry Nation passed on the opportunity to bring
his creations to print, David Whitaker agreed to the task. Doctor Who
in An Exciting Adventure With The Daleks was published the following
November, although none could predict at the time that it would be the
forerunner of a Doctor Who publishing phenomenon counting more than
five hundred fiction titles.

And late in 1964, producer Milton Subotsky secured the rights to remake
The Daleks as a feature film under the Aaru Pictures banner.
Whitaker was once again engaged to adapt the story, this time replacing
the enigmatic Doctor with a kindly human inventor named “Dr
Who”. Directed by Gordon Flemyng and with Hammer horror film star
Peter Cushing in the title role, Dr Who and The Daleks premiered on
June 24th, 1965. Thanks in large part to the Daleks, Doctor Who had
now transcended its origins as a television programme, and was beginning
to embed itself permanently in the public conscience.